Friday, 27 February 2015

The latest predictions from The Guardian for the outcome of the UK
general election will occupy the dreams of political scientists and the
nightmares of politicians. The figures speak of a constitutional crisis. A
stalemate in which a most unlikely coalition would need to be formed in order
to produce a majority government.

If these numbers were
reflected in the poll on May 7th, the only mathematically plausible
option is for Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats to forge a three-way
alliance.

The disgraced former minister
Chris Huhne rightly points out that the fixed-term parliaments may tend to
favour coalition rather than minority government. But that presupposes there
really is a workable coalition. I see this ScotLibLab pact as being something
that might possibly be agreed on paper out of desperation, but which would be
inherently unstable from hour one. Trident, tuition fees, the history of recent
animosity. It’s a recipe for absolute chaos.

Of course, it’s the SNP who
have put the marauding, predatory cat among the puffed-up pigeons of the London
establishment. Who would have thought that a referendum which the nationalists
lost would subsequently give them the whip hand at Westminster? But in The
Guardian’s poll, it is they who will prevent Labour from having the automatic
claim to form a government and make a mockery of the complacency too many in
the Labour hierarchy had about the benefits of the electoral system.

The position of all the party
leaders is extremely precarious. If Cameron fails to win an overall majority
for the Tories, I really think he is history. There are too many right-wingers
who see his coalition government as weak-willed and unnecessary. They have been
biting their tongues to a certain extent, but will sink their teeth elsewhere
after the election.

The Labour Party will be
kinder to Miliband, but only if he succeeds in making Labour the largest force
in Parliament. Unfortunately, thanks to the SNP, The Guardian predicts that he
won’t even manage that. He will survive only as long as he is a credible
contender for Prime Minister.

Nick Clegg might cling on to
his tightly-fought seat of Sheffield Hallam, although there are people who
understandably pray for a student revolution and a ‘Portillo moment’.

If we imagine he survives, he’ll
have more MPs than some people suppose. That’s because the Lib Dems (despite
their long-standing support for electoral reform) have played the
first-past-the-post system very well and have entrenched their vote in some key
constituencies. In my own area, I imagine that Vince Cable will survive, for
example, even though the Tories control the local council and are hopeful of
ousting him.

But Clegg will be a busted
flush. The Lib Dems will know he’s poison when it comes to any negotiations
with Labour and the SNP, so a third coup d’état is surely in the offing.

Of course, there is a lot of
water to flow under Westminster Bridge. Slight fluctuations in the percentage
figures could shift the arithmetical balance. All it might take is a relatively
small thing that moves the polls by a couple of points. A particularly strong
or weak performance in the election debates, for instance, assuming they go
ahead. Or a policy initiative that has some genuine stand-out value.

Peter Kellner of YouGov said
today that he feels the Labour pledge to cut tuition fees to £6,000 could
potentially swing the vote Miliband’s way in nine constituencies. Under normal
circumstances, this might be hardly worth the effort. But in 2015, who knows?

Miliband did well, I thought,
on the latest cash-for-access scandal. Despite former Jack Straw’s involvement
alongside Malcolm Rifkind, the Labour leader managed to turn it into a
here-and-now question: do we stop outside interests or don’t we? As a result,
Cameron was left bleating unconvincingly about people running family businesses
and looking hopelessly out of touch with the public mood.

Will issues of parliamentary
probity make a difference? Or do the electors already think ‘a plague on all
your houses’? The attack on tax avoidance didn’t seem to land a killer punch.

My feeling is that in the
final weeks of the campaign, each of the two major party leaders will be
looking for that tiny piece of good fortune that will make a difference of 10
or 15 or 20 seats. If it proves elusive, Labour and the Tories will retreat
into their well-established comfort zones of the NHS and the economy
respectively. May 7th will roll around and we’ll be in for a very
rocky ride.